Those Lovely Ladies Of The Night

Officer Alex explains the symbiotic relationship between cops and hookers

It’s late March. Valentine’s Day has come and gone, but let’s face it, we’re all still thinking the same thing here: what about the hookers? (I mean, am I right?)

Valentine’s Day was on a Tuesday this year which is great for guys with girlfriends because the pressure of a “Friday” or “Saturday” Valentine’s Day is tremendous. It’s like a third positive pregnancy test or a Saturday afternoon birthday party for your niece or nephew after you’ve accidentally declared to the parent in question “No, I don’t have any plans, why?” There’s no way out and you’re going to be miserable as hell, but a midweek V-Day is a thing of beauty.

Nothing will be overbooked, you can cut out early “for work,” or best of all you can defer it completely due to work (“so we can really enjoy it later baby,”) and then what is an otherwise Class IV Mega-Commitment Holiday can be turned into a run of the mill Friday or Saturday night at the movies/racetrack/strip club with your girl, but for the average hooker?

It just compounds the misery of being an actual whore since you don’t even have the excuse of it being a weekend to distract yourself with larger crowds to dilute what is already an often miserable life.

I’m a cop. A better part of my career is spent dealing with hookers both directly and indirectly, and at the end of the day they become part of the backdrop of society any good copper comes to know.

Allow me to digress: Cops need hookers, actually—and not for the reason that brings to mind.

Intel is the bulk of it; they are called “streetwalkers” for a specific reason and they may not have a grasp of the depth of a thing they see, but see it they do, and that information can be quite literally valuable to the common sex worker.

I mean, a girl that does some fairly unpalatable things for a five-dollar bill has to have other income streams, and a bird’s eye view of the coming and goings of The Street is a definite niche market.

(Particularly if the view is that of a local Christian restaurant owner negotiating alley nookie, or the sighting of a gang member post-shooting. I mean, cha-CHING!)

With this comes hazards, but with this comes unusual talents as well. I’m not talking about anything involving a ping pong ball or a North American marsupial now, calm yourself. I’m talking about Whore Magic.

It’s a scientific fact that prostitutes have the magical ability to disappear on command. While I’m not sure what the catalyst is or if there’s some kind of a Ho Correspondence Course to attain such—though it seems quite reasonable to assume such in this day of free-flowing college loans—but true courtesan’s have the ability to will themselves into a wisp of smoke the instant a roller eases by, no matter how much stealth bacon is in effect. It’s not just uncanny either—it’s downright unsettling.

That said? Skills aside, they are still a demographic emotionally ravaged by the very society that preys upon them, not to mention the memories of dance recital after dance recital missed throughout childhood. The humanity of it all, am I right?

That said, Valentine’s Day has got to be rougher that most when it comes to the Whore Mind, and again…on a Tuesday in particular.

Let’s face it: Richard Gere isn’t going to be picking you up in a Lotus anytime soon, Candy Kane. Freakshow Mel in an ’86 conversion van during his lunch break from the rectory? You can bet your low self-esteem ass, but a sequel to Pretty Woman this is not.

Guys, let’s take a deep breath and more than a few seconds to think of these poor pill-addled ladies and avoid them—I mean, AIDS still IS real—but don’t forget them.

(I appreciate you letting me take you on this normally unaccustomed journey into sensitivity, but that’s the beauty of The Pulse—I can let my guard down as quickly as a hooker can deploy her shorts to the passenger floorboard of an ’89 Econoline, and with no worries at all.)

Be well, constituency.

When officer Alexander D. Teach is not patrolling our fair city on the heels of the criminal element, he spends his spare time volunteering for the Boehm Birth Defects Center.